However, at the outset, it’s not initially clear which of the timelines the game takes place in. the main high school is referred to as both River City High and Nekketsu High, even though River City High was the English name of Reiho Academy in River City Ransom. It’s mostly based on the Kunio games rather than the localized River City names despite some oddities, i.e. Wayforward integrated a bunch of other Technos properties into this game, including Double Dragon (which has begun being featured in the 3DS Kunio games) and even The Combatribes. These games also tend to be more comical. There are other secondary characters that are shared between the two series, though their roles are slightly different. While Kunio and Riki are still the main characters, these mostly feature other assorted members in the various schools. The second subseries is “ Downtown“, which began with Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari/River City Ransom, and basically includes almost all of the games not mentioned above, including some (but not all) of the many, many sports games. These games’ stories are also on the dark and serious side. These include characters that were in the original arcade game, including Hiroshi (the kid that gets beaten up at the beginning of each level), and bosses like Misuzu, Shinji, and Sabu. (This translates to “Hot-Blooded Tough Guy”.) This begins with the original arcade game (plus its 3DS remake and side story Riki Densetsu, both released only in Japan), and continues on with the Game Boy title, Bangai Rantouhen (localized as Double Dragon II, completely different from the arcade/NES Double Dragon II), the two Super Famicom titles Shodai Nekketsu Kunio-kun and Shin Nekketsu Kouha: Kunio-tachi no Banka, as well as the 3DS game localized as River City: Tokyo Rumble. The first one is the “ Nekketsu Kouha” line.

So there are two main subseries in the Kunio-kun franchise.

River city ransom underground 3ds